


Dispatches

by ephemera (incognitajones)



Series: Field Medicine [3]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Medical, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-19 09:57:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20655326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incognitajones/pseuds/ephemera
Summary: Ficlets and prompt fills set in the MSF AU.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jyn lets something slip, and Cassian is startled but pleased to hear it.  
(Takes place between Chapters One and Two of the main story.)

Cassian hears the door open while he’s in the fresher; Kay must be finished the evening patrol. But when he comes out in a towel, Jyn is lying on his bed.

He blinks rapidly, half-convinced he’s dreaming. He hasn’t seen her in four months. Now here she is, sprawled over his pillow, camera propped on her stomach, scanning through video of a protest march she must have taken earlier today.

“I didn’t know you were here,” he says idiotically, his hair still dripping on his shoulders. 

“Obviously.” She laughs. “The murderbot actually let me in without a lecture, you must have read him the riot act.”

She clicks her camera off, sets it on the floor, and walks over to him. Her hands curl around his bare shoulders and she presses her lips to the centre of his damp chest. He reaches for her waist and his grip tightens as she licks across his collarbone. With one fingertip, she traces the sparse line of hair down from his navel and hooks the edge of his towel. “Should I go back to my hotel?”

He shakes his head quickly. Jyn smiles and steps backward toward the bed, pulling at his towel until it drops.

She’s outsmarted herself, though; Cassian takes advantage of Jyn’s overdressed state to slow down her usual headlong rush. He kisses her for a long, long time, purposefully lazy, before she gets impatient and yanks her shirt off. When she throws her head back, he scrapes his teeth down the graceful line of her neck. He circles her throat with kisses until she’s arching against him, digging her fingers into his hair, trying to pull his head down to her breasts.

“Dammit, Cassian,” she gasps. “I haven’t gotten laid in four months, could you move a little faster?”

Cassian laughs into her skin, sliding his hands to the small of her back and finally trailing his lips down her sternum to the warm valley between her breasts, before the timeline catches at his attention. He lifts his head. “You mean, since the last time we…”

“Yeah, so? I’ve been busy.” Jyn frowns. The erector muscles on either side of her spine tense under his fingers, and her hand falls away from the nape of his neck. “It’s no big deal, I don’t care if you have a date on every planet, whatever—”

“I don’t.” Cassian slides back up and kisses the aggressive point of her chin. “In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t get out much. And I like my coworkers, but I’m not interested in sleeping with any of them…” He brushes his mouth along the soft angle of her jaw until she shivers. “Only you.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Outsider POV of Cassian & Jyn

Jukrakt hadn’t been on this volunteer stint with Medics in Sentient Fellowship long, but he’d worked with Andor enough to know that the human was a good doctor: calm, methodical, not prone to emotional outbursts. Maybe a bit grim, but the MSF lifers tended to be that way. If he was shouting, it must be an emergency. 

Jukrakt hurried down the hall, expecting multiple casualties or at least one sucking chest wound. But there was no-one else in the room except a small human woman—who seemed perfectly healthy—standing with her arms folded across her chest. Andor was shouting at her in Basic, so rapidly that Jukrakt couldn’t quite follow.

“Are you done, Cassian?” the woman cut in. “Because you’re scaring the new guy.” She jerked her head at Jukrakt, who furled his aerials in apology for interrupting something he didn’t understand. “And I’m hungry.”

“Really? After pulling a stunt like that? You can buy dinner, I’m going to have to save my money to bail you out.” Andor’s voice still sounded angry, but his face had altered somehow in a way that Jukrakt (who was still learning to read mammalian expressions) had never seen on him before. A smile, maybe? Did Andor smile?

The woman displayed her teeth in return and the way she was looking at Andor made Jukrakt wonder what exactly she was planning to eat. Whatever was going on, clearly his presence as a medical professional was not required. He bent his aerials again and retreated quickly. 

He wandered into the kitchen, where Melshi was eating dinner. He still wasn’t sure exactly what had happened, but he felt like he could use a restorative cup of _plek_. And as a human, Melshi ought to have a better idea of their social norms. “Doctor Andor is yelling at a small person in the exam room. Should I be concerned?”

“I see you’ve met Jyn.” Melshi didn’t look up from his plate, just kept scooping _g'loti_ into his mouth with a piece of the local spiced bread. “Nah, don’t worry about it. Just be sure and stay out of there if the door’s closed. Arguing is only their second-favourite activity.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little taste of domestic bliss after the (happy) ending - definitely the most shamelessly fluffy thing I’ve ever written.

Rain is ticking on the metal roof, trickling down the shutters, and Cassian can hear the hollow rattle as it runs through the drainpipe on the side of the house to refill the cistern. He rarely uses the fireplace, but the evening air tonight carried a chill, so he lit one of the twisted bundles of dry grass used for fires on this planet of few trees. K-2 is taking an oil bath in the machine shed, after which he’ll depower for the night to avoid the damp—he doesn’t enjoy the rainy season on Tirahnn.

Cassian, on the other hand, loves it. It’s a quiet time of year for the clinic: a few infants born, a few chest infections, but generally not much else. Something about the fresh green scent of the cool air revives his spirit almost as much as the crisp bite of Fest’s winter once did.

And when Jyn visits him in the spring, the constant rain means they stay mostly indoors: long lazy days during which she grumbles about nothing to do, but he enjoys watching her sleep in and read and putter around in her pyjamas with a cup of tea, yawning, until he convinces her to come back to bed.

Every time Jyn returns to this house his heart lifts a little, even though by now he’s finally learned to believe her when she says she’ll come back. She’s spent far more time with him here on Tirahnn than he expected, to be honest; he never thought it would be more than a temporary waystop for her.

Instead, it’s gradually become a real home for both of them. Her favourite purple scarf hangs beside his medkit by the door; he buys the kind of whiskey she likes on his monthly shopping expeditions to the nearest city, and she brings back sweet dried _chozen_ fruit for him. Her thumbprint gives her access to the house, the speeder, the data terminal (everything but the clinic’s medical records) and the scent of her is on his pillow.

RIght now she’s curled tight into his side on the sagging couch, her cheek pressed against his shirt and her arm looped around his waist. She was out in the rain earlier, digging in his neglected garden; her hair is still damp, and she’s borrowed one of his old sweaters. His hand steals beneath it and caresses the line of her back, up and down. The firelight makes her pale cheeks glow golden and catches on the fine hairs in her brows. The smoke from the burning hay on the hearth smells sweet.

“What did you plant?” he asks, idly curious.

“Some beans.” She yawns. “It was kind of fun to get my hands dirty, I haven’t done that since I was a kid.”

He kisses the top of her head. “And tomorrow you’re gone, and I’ll have to do all the weeding.”

She smiles with her eyes closed, and pokes him gently in the stomach. “You’re the one who gets to eat them.”

“I’ll save some for you,” he offers.

“You’re such a sap,” she mumbles into his chest.

“Yes, but I’m your sap.”

“You are,” she agrees, lifting her head, and the kiss she gives him is intense enough to prove she likes him that way.

Cassian shifts on to his back to gather her closer, pulling her weight on top of him. The chill in the air is dispelled by the warmth of her lips and her body covering his. While they kiss, slow, drowsy and delicious, he listens to the fire rustle and the rain fall, and his heart brims with quiet joy. Jyn goes away, but she’ll always come back, like the rain.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A birthday prompt ficlet for **firefeufeugo**, who requested something from this AU.

The tiny shed that Cassian called his office was crammed to the ceiling with boxes of disposable gloves, gauze pads, and other stuff Jyn couldn’t recognize. Pieces of the disassembled medical scanner he kept tinkering with on the outside chance he and Kay could get it functioning again, or recycle the parts into something useful, were piled on a workbench. 

Jyn rubbed her hands together and blew on them. It was freezing in here and she had no idea how long it would be before Cassian got back from the clinic. The only warm thing in the room was the ancient bacta still brewing in the corner, bubbles rising to the surface with thick splats as it simmered. She went and stood next to it, sighing at the heat radiated against her back began to thaw her.

Something scraped against the wall outside and Jyn turned her head, listening uneasily. Then a bang, closer to the door, made her jump. Although Tirahnn was relatively safe, every planet had people who thought it was a good idea to steal from doctors. Cassian kept all the serious drugs in a locked safe for just that reason, but every once in a while, someone still tried to break in. 

She scrabbled through the pile of junk on the workbench and her fingers closed around a thick piece of conduit. The door jerked open with a screech of metal and she whirled around, brandishing the improvised weapon above her head— 

“Kay.” The tension drained from her shoulders and she dropped the metal to the floor with a clang, barely missing her toes. “Still prowling, I see.”

“I’m patrolling,” he corrected her in the snippy tone he still seemed to enjoy using with her. “There are valuable items in this storage room. What are you doing here, Jyn Erso? Cassian didn’t tell me that you were expected to arrive.” 

“He doesn’t know I’m coming,” Jyn hissed. “It’s supposed to be a surprise. For his birthday?”

“Then I suggest you let him know immediately. I sent him the emergency signal for an intruder in the clinic and he’ll be arriving any minute.”

Jyn groaned and threw her head back in frustration. Classic Kay. Even when he couldn’t cockblock her, he still managed to ruin her plans.

The door slammed open again and Cassian burst in with a stunner in one hand. As soon as he saw her, he flicked the safety on and dropped it. “What the pfassking hell—Kay, you didn’t tell me it was Jyn!”

“He didn’t know,” Jyn said. “I showed up unannounced and I forgot that Kay likes to monitor the perimeter.” 

Cassian’s face brightened into a smile that made Jyn’s heart thump. She stepped closer and took his head in her hands. “Hi there.” 

He tipped his head down to hers and drew a brief, soft kiss from her mouth. Breathing deep of his scent, she curled her fingers tighter in his hair to pull him in for another, deeper kiss as he wrapped his arms around her and hauled her up against his body until her toes barely touched the ground. The world settled back into its proper place.

After a long moment, Cassian pulled back. “Not that I’m not happy to see you...” 

Oh, that wasn’t a good start. 

“But we’re in the middle of a Zygorran flu epidemic and all the clinics in the province are running full tilt. I haven’t been home in, um…” He blinked owlishly. “Not sure how long, actually.”

“Thirty-nine standard hours,” Kay informed them. 

“Shavit.” Cassian ran his hands through his hair. The signs of his exhaustion were obvious when she looked at him: the lines around his eyes were carved deep, like the dark circles under them, and his facial hair had gone well beyond casual stubble into actual beard territory. “Are you here for work? Please tell me you’ve been vaccinated.”

“Yeah, I got the shot last year. But I’m just here to see you.”

“Did we make plans?” He frowned. “I’m sorry, I must have forgotten.”

She folded her arms over her chest and glared at him. “What’s the date?”

“What do you mean, what’s the—” Cassian blinked again. “...Oh.”

“I wanted to give you a birthday surprise, not a heart attack. You’re not as young as you used to be,” she needled him.

Cassian growled and pulled her back into his arms, one hand grabbing her ass. “I’ll show you old.” 

“I was going to surprise you when you got home later,” she murmured, kissing his throat. “Guess I should have commed first.”

“That would have been wise,” Kay said.

Cassian laughed and tipped his forehead down to hers. She could feel the exhaustion in every line of his suddenly heavy body where it rested against hers. “You might have to let me sleep a couple hours first.”

“That’s okay,” she said. “Your present will keep.”


End file.
